Bluegrass And Kickin Arse

After a lenghty absence of 16 weeks I was finally able to return to my favourite of all repeat workouts today,my bread and butter so to speak,4x1 mile repeats.
Clearly such a layoff between my last set of mile repeats and today was going to have impact but I took great heart in the knowledge that I,d previously never began mile repeats this early in the last two seasons, May of 07 and April 11th last year.
I was also banking on the feel good factor of last nite to carry over into my afternoon appointment w/ the track.
In October of last year I caught Grace Potter & The Nocturnals at the TLA,in my 28 years of gigs I,ve tried more often or not to check out the opening acts,you never know what you,ll get and sometimes you are pleasently surprized,as I was that nite.
Cornmeal,a rollockin good 5 piece bluegrass band from Chicago opened that nite,I was instantly a fan,I,m not the worlds biggest bluegrass fan but I like good music and this 5 piece brings it in spades,I can,t recall if ever I saw a line up of drums,guitar,banjo,fiddle& upright bass but these guys{and gal,the devine Ms Allie Krall} blew me away that nite so when I learnt they were to play the North Star Bar last nite I was there.
PLEASE,check these guys out,either on their website www. cornmealinthekitchen.com or live the next time they,re in your neck of the woods,trust me you won,t regret it,and stick around post show to chat to them,5 of the nicest people you chould ever hope to meet,w/out a doubt the best Valentine,s Day I,ve had in eons......and that was b4 Allie hugged me and said Happy Valentine,s Day................movin on.....
Conditions were close to idealic this afternoon around 1.45pm when I arrived at the track,clearly I meant business,racing flats,tights and long sleeved dri fit were the uniform of choice,no need for added layers of running clothes to drag me down....my 16 week sojurn from these repeats would take care of that I feared!!!
Mile warm up conducted it was the time honoured tradition of"have at it time"I knew this was going to be slower than I,m used to but in running as in life you have to start somewhere.
#1,1.17,1.21,1.21,1.11-5.10.20.A reasonable begining,would,ve liked to open in 1.15 but 1.17 felt comfortable plus I also knew the need to pace myself.
#2,1.16,1.22,1.23,1.16-5.17.40.overall a tinge disappointing but my opening and closing laps were respectable,I,ve got weeks and months to erase those plus 1.20 laps.
#3,1.19,1.24,1.25,1.18-5.26.68.the third one was always going to hurt but I,m proud of the fact I not only stuck at it and never gave up but also w/ retrospect to the fact I opted to jump right back in at the deep end,no pussyfooting around w/3x1 mile repeats my "cannonball"mentality is still alive and well!!
#4,1.16,1.22,1.22,1.13-5.14.04.the biggest satisfying factor on my final mile was a respectable opening lap and almost identical splits to #1.
Fingers crossed next weekend when I return to conduct my mile repeats I can build on todays performance,I won,t be coming off of late nites like I was Thursday after my Armory races or even later nite last nite at The North Star,granted today wasn,t quite the arsekickin I,d hoped it,d be,if anything it was my butt getting kicked but{no pun intended!}last year my year opening mile repeats went:5.14.05,5.15.86,5.17.58,5.08.27.so
All in all a great week,6 days/30 mile for the first time since the last week of November,2 repeat workouts and a pair of respectable races,the starting line in Lathi for Worlds just got a little bit closer.